Any Questions? #120

WAMC's Ian Pickus and resident quizzer Mike Nothnagel take a visit to New Zealand.

Last week's challengeStart with the phrase NATIONAL MALL. Rearrange the letters to spell the names of an insect and two mammals. (as a hint, the words have three, four, and five letters.) What are they?Answer: The insect is an ANT, and the mammals are a LION and a LLAMA.

THIS WEEK'S CATEGORY: NEW ZEALANDOn-air questions: On December 13, 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight the land that came to be known as New Zealand. In 1840, the British and the indigenous Maori people signed a treaty making New Zealand a colony of the British empire, which it still is. So let's see how much you and our listeners know about New Zealand.

1. Shot primarily in New Zealand from October 1999 to December 2000, what film trilogy's popularity inspired the New Zealand board of tourism to promote tours of some of the locations used in the films?2. The New Zealand national men's rugby union team is called the All Blacks, a name that references their all-black uniforms. The New Zealand national men's team in what sport – perhaps somewhat appropriately – is called the Tall Blacks?3. Born in Brightwater, New Zealand, physicist Ernest Rutherford discovered that, regardless of the initial amount, radioactive material invariably took the same time to decay, a concept we now call the material's what?4. Wellington, New Zealand capital city, is only its second most populous city. What is the most-populous city, with more residents than the next six largest cities combined?5. What bird, native to New Zealand and used as the country's national symbol, lends its name as a common term for New Zealanders, and also inspired the name of a fruit?

Extra credit1. The flag of New Zealand is comprised of a blue background, the Union Jack in the upper left corner, and four red stars representing what constellation, visible from the Southern Hemisphere virtually year-round?2. The U.S.-operated research center known as McMurdo Station is located in the Ross Dependency, a region claimed by New Zealand. This region is a sector of what geographical entity?

This week's challengeStart with the name of New Zealand's capital, WELLINGTON. If you change one letter to an R, you can rearrange the result to spell a two-word phrase (four letters in the first word, six letters in the second word) that names something that isn't fun for a person who hates cold weather. What is it?